A Transformative Learning Model towards a Peaceful Death Preparation through Buddhist Peaceful Means for Thai Buddhist Adults

This research aims to study the concept of dying and peaceful death in general understanding and Theravāda Buddhist Teachings, to explore the theory of transformative learning, and to propose a transformative learning model towards a peaceful death preparation through Buddhist Peaceful Means for Thai Buddhist adults. The research employs a qualitative methodology, and the data were compiled through documentary analysis, synthesis, and in-depth interviews with twenty-two key informants from five stakeholder groups.

The findings of the research demonstrated how Thai Buddhist adults prepare for a peaceful death through transformative learning. The findings indicated that people desire a peaceful death and that leading a decent life contributes to their accomplishing this. An individual’s way of life can be significantly affected by their knowledge of death and attitudes about it. These same attitudes and beliefs can also have an impact on how they die. Whereas in Buddhism, the five aggregates dissolve upon death and are significantly influenced by kamma, non-self, impermanence, and suffering. Constantly contemplating death liberates an individual from attachment to both pleasant and unpleasant and enables one to confront death intelligently. The research also contributes a model, the PSIAM model (Peace, Sustainability, Integrity, Altruism, and Mastery) that describes the crucial elements and procedures of transformative learning for peaceful death preparation in the cultural context of Thai Buddhism. It integrates transformative learning with Buddhist Peaceful Means. This model proposes Thai Buddhist adults with a crucial conceptual framework for comprehending and encouraging practices of peaceful death preparation, and it may have implications for other cultural and religious contexts.